


All The Stars

by blanketed_in_stars



Series: 52 Weeks of Wolfstar [32]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: 1995, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Lie Low At Lupin's, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Sirius Black in Azkaban, Sirius Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:44:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4563366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blanketed_in_stars/pseuds/blanketed_in_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sirius pushes him away, both hands scrabbling over the blankets and pillows, most likely for a wand that he no longer has. Remus grabs his hands and holds them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Week 32

Gone are the dreams of wolves—now Remus dreams of gray mornings and empty houses. He wanders from room to room, looking for someone, anyone. All the faces in the picture frames are blurred beyond recognition, and every mirror is shattered. The windows don’t open.

Sometimes Moody is there. Where he comes from is never explained, but he always tells Remus that he’s very sorry. He doesn’t count against the absolute solitude.

 _”No,”_ someone moans, and Remus looks around. The floorboards creak. No one is there. The voice comes again, but there are no words, only sobbing. Remus turns—and opens his eyes to darkness, though the sobbing continues.

“Sirius,” Remus whispers, shaking his shoulder, and again, more forcefully. “Wake up!”

Sirius pushes him away, both hands scrabbling over the blankets and pillows, most likely for a wand that he no longer has. Remus grabs his hands and holds them.

Sirius yells something, eyes flying open, and sits bolt upright. He stares around wildly, and his chest heaves. It’s hard to see much, but his cheeks look wet.

Remus reaches out and freezes when Sirius flinches. “It’s just me,” he says. He takes his wand from the bedside table and casts lumos, and sees that he was right.

“Put it out,” Sirius whispers, his head in his hands.

 _”Nox.”_ Remus puts his wand back and carefully, carefully rests one hand on Sirius’s shoulder. “Nightmare?”

In answer, Sirius leans into his touch. He is still sobbing, shaking, gasping.

Remus puts his arms around him. “It’s all right,” he murmurs. “It was just a dream.”

Sirius shakes his head. “I couldn’t save him,” he chokes out.

With a shock, Remus realizes that the word Sirius yelled was a name. _James._ He swallows. “It’s not your fault.” He doesn’t really know what else to say, so he says it again. “It wasn’t your fault, it wasn’t your fault.”

With slow breaths, Sirius quiets. He pulls back and rubs his face.

“Better?” Remus asks.

“No.” Sirius gets up and fumbles around the foot of the bed in the dark to slide the window open. Cool air washes into the room. After a moment, Sirius returns and gets beneath the covers. “Now it’s better.”

Remus understands. He knows what October smells like. “I dream about them too,” he says, laying down behind Sirius and holding him to his chest. “I always—“

“Moony, you don’t have to—“

“Yes, I do.” It hurts, of course it hurts. But Remus is going to keep talking because the last time, they didn’t talk, and they spent thirteen years paying for it. And because he knows Sirius won’t fall asleep again tonight, if the last three weeks are anything to go by, and because he knows from personal experience that silence doesn’t help. It never helps. “Unless you don’t—“

“No,” Sirius says, “it’s all right.”

And Remus knows that, too. “When I dream about them,” he continues, “it’s never the same. Sometimes there’s fire, and sometimes they’re—in pieces—and sometimes they’re just gone.”

Sirius fills the quiet that he leaves. “They were right there,” he tells Remus. “James was at the bottom of the stairs. His glasses were cracked.” He hesitates. “Lily was in Harry’s room, in front of his crib. They were both fine—I mean, they looked… There wasn’t a mark on them.”

“Naturally.” Remus digests that, folds it into himself. “And I keep imagining the house,” he says when he can bear it. “I only saw it once. It wasn’t—I didn’t want to remember. So I didn’t. I don’t.”

“It was a ruin,” Sirius says at once. His voice is remarkably steady—but then, so is Remus’s. It seems to be through sheer force of will. “Half the top floor was gone. The front door was almost off its hinges. When I pushed it, it just fell to one side.”

Remus can say nothing.

“My turn,” Sirius breathes, and Remus thinks, _salvation._ “I never wanted to picture you, because I knew you hated me.”

Remus struggles past the shards of glass in his throat. “I didn’t—“

“You did, you said you did,” Sirius reminds him, “and I don’t blame you. The point is, I never wanted to imagine what you were doing, but I did anyways. I couldn’t help it.”

There is a question there, and after twenty-odd years of this little dance, Remus hears it. “I was in Scotland,” he says, “you remember.”

“Yeah.”

“Some idiot woke me up to tell me Voldemort was dead. I couldn’t really believe it. He invited me to a pub or something, and I’m pretty sure I just left him hanging…” This isn’t what Sirius wants to hear, Remus knows, but he’s afraid. He rushes on. “Mad-Eye arrived a few minutes later, and he sat me down on the bed, and he said it was true. The war was over. I asked him how. He said they were, you know, d… He said they were dead,” Remus says, almost snarls, because he doesn’t know another way to say it. And that’s one part done.

“I asked about Harry, because I thought he’d be with you. But you had already—I mean, Peter had already gone underground, and they’d already captured you. I don’t think I could breathe after that.” Remus closes his eyes. “I don’t remember much more until a few days later. Mad-Eye had gone, and—“ He stops and listens for Sirius’s breathing.

“I’m still listening,” Sirius says.

Remus is glad. It’s getting easier. “My mum was there. We ate cheese toasties and she didn’t say anything to try to get me to talk, just let me sit there. My dad tried to tell me something, but she shushed him.” Remus frowns. “She died two months later, around Christmas. She was sick, but she never told me.”

Sirius squeezes his hand. “I’m sorry.”

“Sirius Black,” Remus says, and takes a deep breath. “Of all the things you should be sorry for, that’s definitely not one.”

“What are the other things?”

Remus feels how Sirius has gone tense, and realizes it must sound as if he’s about to condemn him. “For one,” he says, “you took your socks off in bed last night, and they were still there when I changed the sheets. Little rolled-up sock balls that smelled appalling.”

Sirius laughs—not just a chuckle, but a real _laugh,_ and Remus could sing. “I’m sorry,” Sirius repeats.

“I forgive you,” Remus says quickly. He doesn’t want to speak, he wants to let the sound of that laughter fill him up and settle into the spaces between his ribs. It’s everything.

They stretch out in the bed and Remus can feel the weight of all the things they’ve spoken tonight, all of that grief. But it’s not just his anymore. He points his toes and can almost hear his muscles crackling with vitality, and when Sirius inhales he thinks he can feel the rush of air in his own lungs.

He feels like the breeze from the open window—light, summery, alive. So he tugs at Sirius’s shoulder until he turns around and they’re face-to-face with the waning gibbous making all their angles glow silver. “It’ll get better,” he says, not a whisper. “One day you’ll wake up and the first thing you’ll do is smile.” He’s not sure if he’s convincing himself or Sirius. He says it again. “It _will_ get better.”

He kisses Sirius’s cheek, still slightly sticky from the tears, and goes to kiss the other, always one for symmetry—and ends up on Sirius’s lips.

Sirius smiles against his mouth. “Moony,” he says, “it already is.”

**Author's Note:**

> i fear no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant and whatever a sun will sing is always you
> 
> here is the deepest secret nobody knows(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
> 
> i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)
> 
> —[i carry your heart with me(i carry it in] by e.e. cummings


End file.
